


fire in the water

by qwerty24



Category: Call the Midwife
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-18
Updated: 2017-07-18
Packaged: 2018-12-03 16:31:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11536095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qwerty24/pseuds/qwerty24
Summary: After a difficult case, Shelagh and Patrick reckon with the ugliness they encounter in their work. Shelagh tries to reconcile what she knows of marriage with what she sees of it in the world.





	fire in the water

**Author's Note:**

> Discussion of domestic violence.  
> Title from Feist’s song.

Nothing like love to put blood back in the language. – Margaret Atwood, “Nothing”

* * *

 

Trixie had been sick, and her eyes are still sallow as she emerges from the back, wiping at her mouth. Shelagh tends to May Williams in the meantime, trying to calm her as she dresses the triangular burn in the shape of a clothes iron on her upper arm. _Second degree,_ she thinks to herself as she adheres the gauze. She will have to remind Patrick to take a look at it after he sees to Mrs. Williams’ most pressing injuries.

Shelagh shudders as she remembers the expansive bruising on the woman’s abdomen, now covered by her gown, the pain dulled by a drip in her arm. Nurse Franklin, normally so stoic and professional had paled at the sight – the discolored flesh purpling and blackening, turning a sickly green at the edges beneath her ribs and above her pubic bone.

“May,” she intones softly, “how did this happen?” But she already knows the answer from the cigarette burns dotting her collarbone, and the darting, frightened look in her eyes.

Nevertheless, Mrs. Williams’ response chills her to the bone. “I told him that he was going to be a father,” and Shelagh swears something resembling a smile ghosts across the woman’s lips before a sob wrenches through her, “and then he –” she tries to continue, but the cries wrack her body.

 _And then he hit me and kicked me until he was no longer a father,_ Shelagh thinks, and she wonders if she might be sick too. Of course they see women like Mrs. Williams in their work, but this violence is so manifest, so very real, blood still pooling from between her legs onto the sheets.

Patrick sees it in his wife’s eyes as soon as he returns from the delivery he had been attending to. At Mrs. Williams’ bedside, he has trouble tempering his own voice as he turns to Shelagh, “Who brought her in?”

“Her brother. He found her like this. It was her husband,” she swallows weakly, hating that the words sound strangled.

Later, as they watch the paramedics stretcher May onto the ambulance, he explains to her how miraculous it is that she has not suffered more severe internal bleeding or organ ruptures considering the extent of the trauma she has endured. _What kind of miracle is this?,_ she wonders.

“She’ll heal, Shelagh,” Patrick tries, resting his hand against the small of her back. She turns away from him. _Will she?_

* * *

 

That evening in the kitchen, she tries to focus on dicing the onions, on righting herself for dinner with the children, but all she can think about is May Williams, how young and scared she had looked, how she had insisted without prompting that they not call the police.

Shelagh hears Patrick returning from his rounds through the open window. She wonders why they do not talk about it more: the kind of violence wrought on women by men, the things that men are capable of, the things that women endure. Or perhaps it is strange that they talk about it at all, when most people seem so intent on hiding and silencing it.

Her thoughts swim noisily in her head, and she wonders too about her vocation and her faith. Sister Julienne once telling her, “We are here to help, not to pass judgement.” But how many women had convinced themselves that the violence they had faced was punishment from the Divine, how many had heard _submit yourselves to your husbands as you do to the Lord,_ and had resigned themselves to cruel men?

Perhaps this was the mother of all questions: how the men you loved could also hurt you, maim you, kill you. Once, when she was a child, walking home from school, a woman, half-dressed, had bounded out into the street, one eye sealed shut by an angry bruise and a purple collar Shelagh now knows was the shadow of a hand around the throat. _Please,_ the woman had pleaded to a passerby, but everyone had kept walking, staring straight ahead. She had been thirteen then, that precarious, precocious age when she had so needed her mother.

Instead, “It’s between a man and his wife, Shelagh. Nothing to worry yourself over,” her father had commanded gruffly when she told him what she had seen, voice quavering as she recalled how the woman’s single eye had brightened with fear, a piercing blue – _help me, help me._

 _The common doctrine of coverture,_ she thinks, remembering those heady early months of her engagement and marriage to Patrick. _The husband and wife are one person in law: that is, the very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during marriage, consolidated into that of her husband; under whose wing, protection and cover, she performs everything. A man cannot grant anything to his wife, or enter into covenant with her: for the grant would be to suppose her separate existence._ Had it bothered her then, the idea of becoming subsumed by marriage, by Patrick?

She has never felt like anything less than an equal when she is with Patrick, yet she knows this is not the case with so many marriages. Does the rarity of the equity between them delight or frighten her? She remembers the deliveries they attended to before they were married, how even then, she had never felt the lowly midwife to his esteemed doctor, and how afterwards, they were still partners in matrimony and in life.

But there are other moments that Patrick and his goodness cannot remedy – the sour taste in her mouth when he had to cut his rounds short to accompany her to open a bank account after she had returned to work, the way her cheeks had burned when she heard the rumors about her after news of their engagement had spread.

These are minor injustices in the face of what so many other women face, but they feel like injustices nonetheless, every barb, each one a reminder of how love is only one of the things that can be between a man and a woman, how there is also trust and power and violence. She thinks too of the women she has cared for as a midwife and a nurse, and the myriad private anguishes, the bruises and burns, the cowed looks of mothers as fathers meet their children for the first time. Once, a broken arm Patrick had referred to the hospital, _I’m so clumsy,_ the patient had insisted, and Shelagh had felt something break inside her too.

And what about all those other women, maybe not trapped, but certainly struggling at least, stranded in some lonely domestic sphere? Marriage, motherhood – those were identities Shelagh wore proudly, with such love and joy, because she had chosen them completely. But if those were the only things you could ever aspire to, the only paths to purpose and personhood, then what choice was that at all? She thinks of mothers with too many mouths to feed, of coat hangers and back alleys. Even if a woman had a kind, loving husband, surely this was its own kind of violence, to condemn women to narrow, uncompromising existences.

This was why it had been so important for Shelagh to return to work, to be a nurse and a midwife too. And she knows it mattered to Patrick too, not least of all because of his unending appreciation for her uniform. She has never been just his wife or the mother of his children, or a thing to be had and confined. The medicine, the healing, the midwifery, those were the things that had drawn them together, that shared goal of making Poplar healthier, of making the world a little better.

But days like today are as harrowing as they are humbling. There is no exhilarating warmth of new life or burgeoning families, only that sinking, cold bile kind of heartbreak. The hospital will discharge Mrs. Williams tomorrow morning back to her husband and her home, a place that should be safe and filled with love, not bloodstains and muffled screams. Shelagh wonders what will happen to May, and the possibilities, and the lack thereof, leave her breathless, aching for this young woman who should have her whole life ahead of her, and the child she will never know.

* * *

 

Shelagh doesn’t want to broach the topic like this as they sit next to each other on the settee after Timothy, Angela, and finally even the baby have mercifully settled in for the night, but the question comes unbidden, the image of May Williams’ bruised stomach and singed flesh still fresh in her mind. “Have you ever wanted to hurt me?”

She thinks of that day of the Summer Fete, the kiss that had scorched the inside of her palm, his dark eyes, something close to hunger behind them. She feels for the scar, now only a faintly raised white line, and runs the pads of her fingers over the crescent shape, a celestial reminder of beginnings and endings. Even then, had it been her woundedness, her vulnerability which had drawn him to her?

Shelagh feels him stiffen against her and balk at the question, and she knows that he is thinking of Mrs. Williams too. “No,” he says, voice strangled, “No, never. Shelagh –” his voice catches in a strange, unfamiliar way.

 _Of course not,_ she knows this, and always has. It’s a silly question, but it’s a real one too. There’s a different question hidden somewhere in there, about things beyond May Williams or Poplar, about violence and inequities baked into this world, and about the women who live in it. But she can’t find the words for that now, not when she swallows a mouthful of scalding tea, when his eyes swim with an unreadable torment.

In the end, she doesn’t need the words, because he reciprocates with his own question. “Have you ever been afraid of me?” and he reaches out his hand as if to cup her face, or tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, but instead he grips the back cushion, knuckles straining. _No, never,_ she wants to volley back at him, because it is the truth, and because he deserves to hear it, but she feels something hard soften in her soul before calcifying again, tight against her chest and clawing up her windpipe.

She reaches for him and her lips find his hungrily – she is not sure what she wants – but whatever it is, it is not kindness or tenderness. There is something dark pressing against her heart, and a knot sits in her throat. Patrick seems startled at her forwardness. His hands are hesitant at her hips, and his mouth is soft and yielding against hers. She wants him to tighten his grip, wants teeth and tongue and bite, a little danger. But how does she say this? Ask for this?

And why should she want it like this? So that he can affirm or assert something over her? Because, or in spite of the fact that she trusts him, and he trusts her?

Shelagh tangles her hand into the hair at the nape of his neck and takes his bottom lip between her teeth: he gasps sharply, and she feels his fingers press against her stomach, still dulled by the fabric of her dress and slip. “Too many clothes,” she complains around his now roaming tongue, untucking his shirttails, nails raking against the skin of his back.

“God – Shelagh,” he replies, “not like this,” he exhales, eyes dark and dilated. She can tell he is holding back, wanting, but ever the gentleman, always.

“Please,” and her voice sounds foreign, keening. _Please, I need this, whatever it is. Make me forget._ They have only been together a few times since the baby was born, and they are still a little out of practice, although this feverish hunger is altogether unfamiliar. She feels him relent as she unbuttons his top, mouth everywhere, her other hand traveling southward.

He stands, presses her to him, evidence of his need hard against her stomach. He attempts to lead them to the bedroom, but it is too far, too many stairs, when she wants him _here, right now._ In the next instant, she has him pinned between her and the wall, and they are all limbs, a breathless tangle of joints and divested clothing.

But everything is still too soft, the rind of his mouth laving, not bruising, his hands caressing, not crushing. “Don’t be gentle,” she murmurs against his skin, punctuating her request with nipping teeth and digging nails. She feels him still, and she wonders if she has pressed too far, his hands coming to her shoulders to push her away from him. His eyes are searching, and she comes back to herself a little, something close to shame bubbling up inside her, but then he swings them around so that she finds herself backed up against the wall this time, his mouth demanding at her throat, her clavicle, her breasts, her own fingers weaving into his hair, urging him on.

“God,” he hums into her skin as he tests between her thighs, his other hand gripping her hip. She can only moan wantonly as the contact sends a jolt up her spine, heat pooling and pulsing low in her stomach. He hoists her higher, and she bites her lip at the delicious contrast of cold wall and warm body, before he rears forward and pushes into her.

She thinks the expletive, and the panting, gasping sounds must be coming from her, but as he swivels his hips harder, her focus narrows to this frenzied, carnal joining – the tension coiling and ratcheting inside her, her skin brittle and blazing all at once. “Patrick,” she pleads, greedy, still so wanting, some insatiable hollowness still unfilled.

And even though everything is raw and aching and all the nerve endings in her body are aflame, she doesn’t think she can come like this. The angle is wrong, and so is her headspace, unbidden images of the past day flashing behind her eyelids with each thrust.

But his hand travels down her body to where they are joined, and she hisses at the calloused friction of his fingers. “Eyes open,” he murmurs against the helix of her ear, before retreating to lock his dark eyes on her clear ones. She is still surprised that he can read her like an open book, knows not just what she needs, but what she wants too. That he cares about making this good for her, even this time, especially this time, softens some of the darkness that has been shadowing her heart. She swallows a moan and brings her mouth to his throat to muffle herself, teeth grazing against heated flesh, tasting the salt of his sweat.

In the end, it isn’t the sharp burn of his hips as he drives into her, or the feeling of the wall against her back, or the way his fingers know exactly where to circle and touch that undoes her. Instead, it is the look in his darkened eyes, that tenderness, unsought for, but so earnest and ardent that sends her over the edge, writhing and shuddering, head thrown back, _eyes open,_ she remembers, and he joins her there too, his gaze still trained on her, a guttural sound somewhere between a groan and a gasp escaping his lips.

Patrick releases his hold on her slowly, legs unsteady as she catches her breath, heart still hammering against her ribs. She rests her head against his chest, and she can hear his heart too, in time with hers, _lub-dub, lub-dub, lub-dub._

Later, after she has returned to herself, and his eyes have been restored to their warm, hazel hue, they retreat to the bedroom where they collapse, boneless and sated. Her dreams are filled with flowers that night, hydrangeas and dahlias and honeysuckle blooming against the skin, purple and blue and black. He holds her against him, tracing the slender curve of her spine, a promise in the warmth of his breath, petals unfurling with the dawn.

* * *

 

Patrick finds her in front of the mirror the next morning, naked, fingers pressing into the beginnings of a handprint at her hip. He is momentarily horrified, then alternately gripped by a heated possessiveness at all the ways that he has marked her as his. She watches him wordlessly as he comes up behind her and places his hand over hers, and they look at themselves in the mirror as she guides him to a blemish above her breast and then up to her collarbone and neck where all manner of bite marks and bruises are making themselves known.

“Excellent dentition, Doctor,” she teases, a smile playing against her lips.

“Not too shoddy, yourself, Nurse,” he retorts, feeling for where she has reciprocated behind his ear and against his shoulder. Raised lines along his upper arm and down his back remind him of where her nails had raked. He is glad for her levity, feels comforted that he had not made a mistake last night, conceding to the charged tension that had grown between them. But things feel unfinished, his own question left unanswered.

“Shelagh,” he begins, treading lightly, and she turns away from the mirror, into his arms.

“Wait, Patrick,” she interjects, her voice and eyes soft and yielding. She knows what he wants from her, and she wants to settle it too, before the children wake, before they begin again, another day filled with new patients and ailments. She is sensitive and sore, physically, certainly, but her heart is too, a chafing kind of ache. She pulls on her nightgown, and it helps to feel less exposed, less vulnerable.

He joins her on the edge of the bed, takes her hand, “I’ve never been afraid of you, Patrick,” she reassures in her Scottish lilt, but her voice hardens as she grips his fingers, “but I’m so afraid for Mrs. Williams, afraid of what will happen to her…” Shelagh tapers as she searches his face.

“We did the best we could,” he tries, but his response sounds feeble even to his own ears, and the watery sheen in his wife’s eyes tightens his own throat.

“I’m afraid for the women like her, for the ones who will come after her,” Shelagh finishes. She turns her face into his neck, no teeth now, only silent tears, and it helps that he understands her fears, shares her grieved rage. Of course, there are all the other unspoken words, about things bigger than the two of them, bigger than love, about what happens to women in this world, and about how men and women walk differently in it.

She thinks finally of her daughter, of her little angel girl, and how one day she will not be so little anymore. She thinks of how the world is changing, how it has already been transfigured for her, and how much further there is left to go. What will it look like when Angela is a young woman, when she goes out into it to make a life for herself? She is fearful for her, like any mother for her daughter, but she is also buoyed by something close to hope, because she knows there are men like Angela’s father and brother out in the world, because she already sees how able and resolute and intelligent her daughter is.

Their youngest son’s hungry cry pierces their morning reverie. Another day stretches before them, wide and open. There is so much healing to be done, so many wounds of the flesh and the soul to be tended to. She untangles herself from Patrick’s embrace, wipes at the salty streaks she has left on his skin. She knows now: Love is one thing. And violence is something totally other. She leans in, tastes his own tears on his lips. Is he thinking of their daughter, of their children, too? There are no more images of flowers becoming broken blood vessels, no more beautified brutality. She thinks instead of marigolds and daisies and daffodils, fighting to bloom with their faces toward the sun.


End file.
